


Natural History

by Argyle



Category: Good Omens
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-06-06
Updated: 2006-06-06
Packaged: 2019-02-11 20:46:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12943554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Argyle/pseuds/Argyle
Summary: The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain. (London, 1799)





	Natural History

_"But at my back I always hear Time's winged chariot hurrying near." -- Andrew Marvell_

Aziraphale knew that eternity was so.

To measure it out would be easy enough: a decade here, a century there, and time eventually amounted to something more than the sum of its parts. Such was the way of things.

And here he was standing on Crowley’s doorstep. He had been doing so for a rather long time, though he could not quite remember now why it was he had come.

Of course it had nothing to do with the fact that Crowley had failed to meet him for dinner the previous evening, and twice more the month before. Roast duck tastes like roast duck even if it is eaten in silence. He hadn’t yet made a habit out of waiting for Crowley, he assured himself each time, nor would he.

And of course there was no reason to expect that Crowley would be at home. It was, after all, quite late in the afternoon. It was also raining, and had been raining for days; by all accounts, he could not be sure that the sun had ever thought it prudent to rise in the first place, though any right-minded being would have surely found out by boarding the first available trawler to an island in the Aegean.

What indeed might possess Crowley to invite him along on such an excursion? The angel would no doubt only complain about the sand in his breeches and the ruddy cast of his cheeks. After all, it had happened before; he knew Crowley would not make the same mistake twice.

Aziraphale sighed. He was only making things worse. Even after several absent-minded attempts at miracling them dry, his clothes were damp with rain, and they clung to his skin as he walked back up the corridor.

“Crowley?” he piped. He had been knocking in five-minute intervals for the past twenty, only breaking to dash down to the street to make sure Crowley had not slipped by; his knuckles stung red against the strain. “Please, my dear boy. If you’re there, open up.”

The latch fell back with a sudden, brazen crack.

“Hi,” Crowley said, and rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands. The top lacings of his shirtsleeves were undone, and his hem hung out from his trousers at haphazard angles. His hair was not what might be called mussed, no, but it hung unhampered about his temples. He blinked and glanced blearily up and down the corridor, then back to Aziraphale. He frowned. “You’re all wet.”

“I’m...” Aziraphale shifted from one foot to the other, but there was little dignity to be found in the squish-squashing sound of his boots. “Oh. Yes,” he said.

“ _Why_ are you wet?”

“It’s raining.”

“Oh.” Crowley appeared to consider this. “Would you, er, like to--”

“Yes, please,” Aziraphale said, maneuvering through the doorway and planting himself before the fireplace. Crowley was not far behind.

“You look terrible,” he said with a surmising nod. And then: “I mean, why bother running about like that?”

“Well, one must go as fast as one can. I thought you’d gone away to the Cyclades.”

“What?”

Aziraphale looked up. “There was something I wanted to talk to you about. I hope I’m not disturbing anything.”

“No,” Crowley said, and shook his head. He had retreated a few steps, and for the first time Aziraphale realized that he was barefoot. “Can I get you a drink?”

Aziraphale smiled, rubbing his hands together briskly. The fire crackled and danced with the jolly breadth of a winter eve, but the logs which lay behind the grille remained unblemished as would glass upon the stone. “Thank you,” he said. And then, casually: “That’s the problem with raw wool, you know. Blessed nuisance to dry.”

“Not to mention the putrid reek of it.”

“The shepherd’s life is somewhat of an acquired taste, I suppose.”

“Tell that to the sheep.” Crowley handed him a glass, and his retreating hand brushed against Aziraphale’s. He blinked, and said, “You’re cold.”

Aziraphale sipped the whisky, savoring the warm path it traced down his throat and into his belly. “Don’t be silly,” he protested around the lip of the glass. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

Without pretense or pause, Crowley touched the back of Aziraphale’s hand again, and then thumbed the sodden hem of his cloak. “You really ought to take this off. You’ll bleed that blasted green dye all over my new rug.”

“How considerate of you to say,” Aziraphale replied pettishly, but he shrugged off the cloak just the same, draping it across the back of a chair. A simple sharp glance in the direction of his boots corrected the problem of his wet feet, and his shirt was at last convinced to come round to the cause of dryness. He glanced over his shoulder triumphantly, but Crowley was nowhere to be seen.

Rather, he was only to be heard.

A low shuffling sound wafted out from the bedroom, followed by a short clatter and the rumbling _woosh-whoop_ of a tall chest of drawers. Crowley emerged from the darkened hall several moments later, parcel in hand. “Here we are,” he said.

“What is it?” Aziraphale asked, and came to stand beside him as Crowley loosened the twine and pulled back the heavy parchment.

“What does it _look_ like?”

“Well.” Aziraphale tilted his head, then smiled.

It looked like a jacket.

It was rough and thick and like nothing else he knew. It scratched against his cheek as he pulled it about his shoulders, and he sneezed repeatedly when the pervasive tang of wool and must reached his nose. The color was that of the moorlands: warm and brown and touched with the knowledge of time, that dusty shade of green which ran through and through in thin veins.

The cuffs came to what was very nearly the proper place on his wrists; the back and sides settled with the delicate dreaminess of a care-worn gesture.

His whole heart went out to it at once.

“What _is_ this material?” he asked, after a moment.

“Oh, just a little something I’ve been working on,” Crowley said with circumspect pride. “Or the Scots have been, at least. You know I’ve no stomach for raw textiles.” He smiled. “They call it _tweel_ , of all things. Appalling, isn’t it?”

“Pardon?” Aziraphale was inspecting the inner seams and the stitch of the buttonhole.

“I said it’s appalling.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale agreed gently. “The chill quite often gets into one’s bones.”

“So,” said Crowley. He cleared his throat. “What’s up?”

“Hmm?”

“You said there was something you wanted to tell me.”

“Er,” Aziraphale began. He glanced away, but continued to graze his fingertips over the jacket. Crowley was watching him, not intently or out of obvious purpose, but rather with the soft gaze of the recently woken. It was only then that the angel realized that this was so. He felt his cheeks coloring slightly, and he made a swift gesture: a rolled newspaper materialized in his pocket, and he opened it to the front page. “Oh, yes. I wanted to ask whether you had seen this.”

Crowley arched a brow. “‘Scientists baffled by mystery beast, suspect hoax,’” he read. “Baffled? I would have at least had them pegged for confounded amazement, give or take a dash of chagrined horror.”

“Well, this _is_ New South Wales we’re talking about here. They’re a rather strong lot.”

“That’s one way to put it.”

“Anyway,” said Aziraphale lightly, “they’ve brought several of them here.”

“Platypii.”

“Yes.”

“Funny name to give a duck-billed mole. Makes me wonder whether they know more than they’re letting on.”

“What are you suggesting?”

Crowley smiled. “Nothing.”

“Ah.” Aziraphale glanced down at the newspaper. “It says here there’s to be an exhibition. I thought we might attend.”

“As friends of the scientific community, eh? A fellow could get used to that.”

“I’m sure the platypuses wouldn’t mind. Besides which, I’m sure the gentlemen at the Academy have long since forgotten our little misunderstanding.”

“It was predominately _your_ misunderstanding, you realize,” said Crowley. “I had nothing... well, rather little to do with it.”

“What about the sparrow-headed marmot?”

“You mean the _sparmot_? It took them _decades_ to decipher it.”

“And the antlered jackrabbit?”

“True,” said Crowley. “It was a good bit of fun, but by no means my best effort.”

Aziraphale sighed. “Fine,” he said. “But do think it over.”

“Moral support isn’t my forte, angel. You ought to know that by now.”

“We could have a spot of lunch beforehand.”

Crowley nodded thoughtfully, and said, “A pity grouse is out of season.”

“Shall we say one o’clock on Saturday?”

“Make it two.”

“Lovely,” Aziraphale chirped. He set down his empty glass and left the newspaper on Crowley’s chimneypiece, but then paused on his way to the door. He glanced about him, over his shoulder and down to his hands, before at last meeting Crowley’s eye. “Do you mind if I hold on to the jacket? It still looks rather chilly out there.”

“Sure,” Crowley said.

“Good! I mean,” he continued gravely, and took a step backwards, “I’ll have it back to you when the weather turns, of course.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Aziraphale nodded, stepped into the hall, and said, “I’ll be seeing you, then.”

But the door closed with a noncommittal click.

It was only after Aziraphale had gone down the stair and crossed into the street that he looked round to see that the windows of Crowley’s flat were yet lit from within.

The rain at last slowed to a soft patter upon the pavement; Aziraphale huddled closer into the jacket. Crowley couldn’t know that he would take an empty booth at a teahouse down the street, and that the angel would wrap his hands around the warm china without ever taking a sip. Then, some time later, even the cup would sit ignored as Aziraphale stared out the condensation-laced window. When Crowley passed by, his hands pressed into the folds of his cloak and his boots glinting in the oiled evening light, he couldn’t know that a fleeting gaze grazed after him.


End file.
